Lineage Most Lethal (Ancestry Detective)

by S. C. Perkins

  “Anyway, this man had a Montblanc pen on him,” I continued. “My client’s dog, Boomer, picked it up, and I didn’t get it back from him until after the police had left. It’s a fountain pen, a Meisterstück, I’m pretty sure, and looks old, like some you have in your collection. I wanted to show it to you before I handed it over to the police. I’m curious to know how old it is, and since you’re practically an expert, I figured you’d be able to tell me.”

  A grin split my grandfather’s face. “I’ll do my best to impress you, then. You’ve kept it somewhere safe where it wouldn’t get scratched further?”

  I gave a teasing roll of my eyes. “Of course, Grandpa. Who do you take me for, some heathen’s granddaughter?”

  “Well, you do have your grandmother’s blood, too, and you know what she was like,” he said with a wink.

  I grinned. My grandmother was notoriously unsentimental about any inanimate object and was famous for keeping her gemstones mixed with her costume jewelry and storing both in a cardboard shoebox.

  “Gran would have chucked it in her purse, dog slobber, dirt, and all, that’s true,” I said with a laugh.

  “And then she would have given it to me a month later, when she finally cleaned out that purse of hers, and it would have had peppermint wrappers and ten different receipts stuck to it,” Grandpa said.

  “I think you’ll approve of where I stored it, then,” I said, showing him my hinged sunglasses case, a tangerine-colored hard shell. I popped it open, revealing not my sunglasses, but the Montblanc, on the soft chamois interior.

  “You’re right, it is a Meisterstück,” Grandpa mused as I held the pen up, moving it slowly so he could see it from all angles.

  “It’s fairly basic,” I said, “except for these gold bands.” I suppressed a giggle when I saw his hitherto mild interest turn into a sharp squint as I pointed out the cap’s three thin gold bands and the fourth thicker one. “And the engraving on the nib is interesting, too.”

  It looked like Grandpa’s nose was about to touch his phone screen when I pulled off the cap to display the pen’s gold writing nib.

  “It’s hard to see, but there’s a scroll motif and some engraving under the forty-eight ten.” I pointed to the spot. “It’s very pretty. Looks like two crossed feathers amidst all the scrollwork.”

  My words were met with silence. For a moment, I thought the connection had frozen, but then I saw whiskers and the calico face of Bertie, Grandpa’s cat. She’d jumped up onto the table and butted her head against his hand, making the phone move. As she purred, her tail made like a fluffy windshield wiper across the screen.

  “Grandpa?” I said.

  He gently nudged Bertie out of the way. “Can you take a close-up photo of the nib, Lucy, and send it to me? And one of the cap, too.”

  I nodded. “Sure thing. Will that help you determine the age?”

  Grandpa’s blue eyes were fixed on the pen. “What?” he finally said. “Oh, yes, I think that will help in this instance.”

  I capped the pen once more and smiled. “This one must be rare, huh?”

  My grandfather was rubbing a veined hand over the white stubble on his chin. It was a gesture I recognized that told me he was deep in thought. “Why do you say that?”

  I turned the pen over in my fingers. “Because up until now, you’ve been able to tell me the general age of a fountain pen within seconds of seeing it.”

  For another moment, Grandpa was silent, but as soon as I opened my mouth, he straightened up, looking pointedly at his watch, his lips twisting into a resigned smile.

  “Oh, my goodness. Lucy, my darlin’, I’m afraid I promised John McMahon I’d have breakfast with him this morning and I nearly forgot. You know that old so-and-so, he’ll call me every five minutes if I’m not on time.” He shook his head in mock exasperation. “I’ve already steeled myself to listen to him drone on about LSU’s chances of beating A and M in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, I don’t need to have him—what did Serena tell me to say? She’s such a pistol, that one … oh, yes, I don’t need him ‘blowing up my phone,’ too.”

  “Oh, okay. No problem, Grandpa,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “Have fun with John. And tell him for me he’s plumb crazy if he thinks the Tigers will beat the Aggies.”

  He chuckled, giving me a thumbs-up that clearly displayed his own Aggie ring, worn down so much now that it was almost a featureless lump of gold. “With pleasure. And you’ll send me those photos?”

  “You’ll have them before you get to the diner,” I promised.

  “Good,” he said with a nod. “Until later, then, my darlin’.” Then he blew me a kiss, which I caught and put on my cheek just as the screen went dark, leaving me feeling like something not right had happened.

  “Huh,” I said to myself as realization dawned. “I can’t believe it, but I think Grandpa just blew me off.”

  A moment later, my phone buzzed with a text from Pippa and I switched gears.

  Everyone’s here and excited to hear your presentation! See you in 30!

  Hopping off my armchair, I gave myself a mental high-five for being smart enough to do my makeup before calling Grandpa. I dressed in a pair of black pants paired with a silky blue V-neck blouse, black wedges, and simple gold jewelry. Then I took some close-up photos of the Montblanc’s nib and cap and sent them off to Grandpa, before putting the pen back in my sunglasses case and stashing it in my tote among all the other things in there, including three folders, a few peppermints, and more than a few receipts.

  Slinging my tote over my shoulder, I grasped the handle of my wheeled rolling cart, which held a box containing all the Sutton family memory books, a box of restored photographs, and a four-foot-long cardboard tube that held a painting I’d commissioned of the Sutton family tree. Wheeling everything out the door, I headed for the ballroom to set up.

  NINE

  The screen faded to black after a few poignant heartbeats of Pippa Sutton looking out over her great-great-great-grandmother’s garden, pride and emotion glowing in her eyes.

  The assembled twenty-two descendants of Reginald and Sarah Bess Sutton broke into applause. I blushed with pleasure at how well my video had turned out, and how well they’d reacted to it. Nearly every last one of them had screen time in one way or another, even if it was simply a photo and a quote that recalled a particular family memory. I’d worked hard on this project for the past six weeks, and I was proud of what I’d done to preserve the history of this family.

  They’d also loved it when I’d pulled out the rendering of their family tree. Painted as a huge, wide magnolia, its leaves showed the names, birth dates, and any applicable death dates of the family members, from Reginald and Sarah Bess on down to Pippa and her eight younger cousins, the newest generation of the clan. The painter I’d hired had done an amazing job, and the family all clamored to sign up to receive a poster-size print.

  “I can’t believe we’re related to Princess Diana and the Spencer family,” one fortysomething second cousin gushed.

  “Well, only way, way back,” said another cousin, but with a look on her face that told me she’d be crowing about that connection for the rest of her life.

  “How about the fact we have so many dukes, knights, and barons in our line?” said Matthew, Pippa’s second cousin once removed, who, at sixteen, was Pippa’s closest younger cousin in age. “What did you call them, Lucy?”

  “Peers of the realm,” I said.

  “Yeah, that,” Matthew said. “It’s really cool!”

  “I didn’t know we were related to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,” boomed one of the other older cousins, a big man with a shock of red hair inherited from the other side of his family.

  “And that we have so many entrepreneurs and social influencers in the family,” breathed another woman with an earnest expression. She was one of Pippa’s older first cousins once removed, but was so much like an aunt that Pippa called her Aunt Melinda.


  Pippa turned to me. “Personally, I can’t believe how much Sarah Bess went through to get from England to America,” she said. “I mean, first her chaperone died on the ship, leaving her all alone at barely eighteen years old. Then the ship got caught in bad weather and they were adrift at sea for days. Then she and half the passengers were sick when they came into Ellis Island.”

  “It was Castle Garden, actually,” I said. “Ellis Island didn’t open until 1892, and Sarah Bess arrived in New York in 1887.”

  Pippa grinned. “That’s right. Everybody always thinks of Ellis Island. I’d never heard of Castle Garden until today.”

  “It’s definitely overshadowed in history as an immigration port,” I agreed. “Sarah Bess had barely recovered from her journey and illness after arriving when the Great Blizzard of 1888 hit in March.”

  “I’m amazed you found that newspaper story of how she helped other families survive the blizzard by bringing them food and blankets and taking some of the children into her home.” Pippa’s look of awe at my newspaper sleuthing made me grin.

  “I’d already found evidence of Sarah Bess’s philanthropy from her life in England, so I wasn’t surprised at all to find she jumped back into it as soon as she was on her feet in America,” I said.

  “And she continued helping others for the rest of her life,” Pippa said. “She’s truly my hero, and makes me want to be a more active giver than I already am.”

  I saw her glance across the room at her mother, who I knew was one of Pippa’s heroes as well. Until recently, at least. Roselyn, looking fully recovered from yesterday’s trauma, now appeared bored out of her mind as she made small talk with one of the family. She’d barely watched the oral-history video, choosing to spend most of the time looking at her phone instead. Those sitting around her had been too engrossed to even notice, though I’d seen Pippa briefly frown at her mother before giving the video her full attention.

  Only when Roselyn heard her own voice did her head snap up. I saw her straighten with pride at how good she looked on film, and she’d looked around for someone to confirm it. When no one did, she’d gone back to her phone, her thumb moving up and down on the screen, no doubt scrolling through photos on social media.

  Her look of boredom shifted only one other time, when something she saw on her phone made her stiffen, her thumb hovering over the screen. From where I stood, just behind her and at an angle, I couldn’t see what it was, but I’d caught her glancing at Pippa with a strange expression before going back to scrolling, her daughter none the wiser.

  Another cousin joined us, a handsome man with wide-set blue eyes, chestnut-brown hair, and a build like a former soccer player starting to thicken around the middle. As even family members sometimes did, I had to blink. He looked remarkably like Pippa’s late father, but was, in fact, Bracewell Sutton’s first cousin.

  Automatically, his stats popped into my brain in short bursts, like bullet points. He was David S. Eason—the “S.” standing for Sutton. Aged fifty-two, one of the three Eason siblings, who included Melinda and Laurie. Divorced from his wife of fifteen years, David had one teenaged son who lived with his ex-wife in Colorado. He’d been a respected antiques dealer in Houston for most of his career, but was currently on what Pippa referred to as a “sabbatical.” On Pippa’s charts, he was her first cousin once removed. To Pippa, however, he was one of the cousins who’d really stepped up after her father’s accident, earning him the title Uncle Dave. It was how I now referred to him as well.

  “Hi, Uncle Dave,” I said. “What did you find most interesting about your family tree?”

  Smiling, Uncle Dave handed Pippa and me each a Burleigh mug holding steaming coffee, then took a third mug for himself. We moved as one to the sugar and cream and began doctoring our java.

  “Without a doubt, it was my grandfather James and his service in the war. I mean, I knew he fought as a British soldier and was one of those who helped to liberate Paris, but I had no idea he worked in intelligence. While my mother was alive, I asked her many times what Gramps did in the war, and she always said she never knew, that he never spoke of it.” He cocked his head slightly in a way that reminded me of Boomer. “How did you even find all this out?”

  “It’s there in his service records,” I replied. “You just have to follow the right protocol to request it from the National Archives. You’d be able to find out the same information if you had the time. I can just do it a lot faster and pull in a favor or two, if needed.”

  Uncle Dave shook his head in reverence. “Well, to quote my young nephew, it’s really cool.”

  Pippa nodded with enthusiasm. “I’d love to know more about him. You told me yesterday you’d requested other records, Lucy. Do you think we’ll be able to find more on what he did in intelligence?”

  “There’s no guarantee, but I think the odds might be good,” I said. To their excited faces, I held up a calming hand. “You have to understand, there might not be any documents. Or, if there are, we might not be able to gain access to them. All I can do is request them and see what we can come up with.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I also have an ace in the hole at the National Archives in DC, though. If I have to, I can play that card.”

  Uncle Dave turned to his younger cousin. “You know, Pippa, I thought it was a trip when you told us you’d hired Lucy here to do our genealogy, but I didn’t think it would be this much fun, or this interesting.” He gave her a one-armed hug.

  “High-five,” I said to her.

  She laughed and slapped her palm to mine. “High-five, totally.”

  Uncle Dave put his palm up as well, and Pippa and I both obliged. Then Mrs. P. bustled in with a fresh tray of cookies and scones. The younger cousins made a dive for the pastries, and I smiled when a dark-haired little girl named Claire brought Pippa and me each a chocolate chip cookie with a shy smile.

  “Oh, thank you, sweetie,” I said, taking the cookie and biting into it.

  “What? No cookie for me?” Uncle Dave said. Claire disappeared, but was back in moments with a cookie for her older cousin. Uncle Dave gave her a courtly bow, and Claire ran off, giggling, to join her other cousins.

  Nibbling on our cookies, Pippa and I looked out the windows to see another couple of young cousins playing tug with Boomer.

  “He just loves having so many kids to play with,” she said with affection. “He’s such a good boy.”

  Behind us, Mrs. P. snorted. “He’s a menace, that’s what he is. Especially when he jumps in the river and then goes running like a terror through the knot garden.” She looked at me. “Last week he came straight from the river and rolled in the compost the head gardener had just put out. I thought the poor man was going to have an apoplexy!”

  Pippa and I laughed, though I noticed Uncle Dave merely regarded Mrs. P. coolly. For her part, Mrs. P. acted like he wasn’t even there.

  “Speaking of Boomer, I’m so glad those treats worked and you got that fountain pen away from him,” Mrs. P. said.

  “Fountain pen?” Pippa echoed, even as we stepped back to accommodate two waiters bringing fresh drinks. Mrs. P. moved off to direct them, and I explained about Boomer being a pen thief and how Mrs. P. had shown me the stinky-treat way to his heart, effectively saving the Montblanc from becoming the dog’s latest chew toy.

  “So that’s why he scampered off after that man collapsed instead of coming to me like he normally would,” she said.

  Uncle Dave’s eyes narrowed with interest. “A Montblanc, did you say? My, that’s a nice pen. A new one can be over a thousand dollars. A vintage one could go for several times more, depending on certain factors.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” I said. Another thought swirled around in my brain. Could the pen be the thing our dead man wanted to keep safe?

  No, his voice had been raspy, but the words had been clear. He’d said, “Keep them safe.” Them, plural.

  “I did show it to my grandfather over FaceTime, though,” I continued. “He coll
ects Montblancs. He didn’t say what it was worth, but he did seem very interested in it, especially when I showed him the intricate scrollwork and feathers engraved on the nib.”

  “Now my curiosity is definitely piqued,” Uncle Dave said. “Where is this pen now?”

  “It’s in my tote,” I said, gesturing with the last half of my cookie across the ballroom to the far corner. Mrs. P., who was taking out some extra Burleigh mugs from the nearby glass-fronted cabinet, had evidently just noticed my hiding place as well, and was craning her neck toward the corner as she pulled mugs by their handles.

  “Could we see it?” Uncle Dave asked.

  I glanced at Pippa, who seemed to be examining her cookie, crumbling one edge in her fingers. She’d been looking uncomfortable since Uncle Dave had mentioned the Montblanc’s value. Recognizing the heartbeat of silence directed her way, though, her head jerked up.

  “Oh, yes, we’d love to see it.”

  I hesitated. It was the same level of forced cheeriness Serena’s and Josephine’s voices gave off when I offered to demonstrate my latest genealogy software. But Pippa followed up with a smile and a nod of encouragement, so I stuffed the last of the cookie in my mouth and went to get the pen—making it just in time to help Mrs. P. as she juggled one mug too many.

  “Got it,” I said, lunging the last step and scooping a pink calico mug that was slipping from Mrs. P.’s pinky finger. For good measure, I lifted off another.

  “Oh, you are an angel, Lucy,” she said breathlessly. “We need more mugs in the sitting room. Seems like all our other guests came down for coffee at the same time.” She moved sideways to reveal my leather tote bag, sitting open as I’d left it. “These must be your presentation materials and such, then?”

  “They are, and I came to get the fountain pen I rescued from Boomer,” I replied, digging in my tote, pushing aside a folder full of genealogy relationship charts, feeling under another folder of blank ancestor charts, and finally finding my sunglasses case at the bottom. “Pippa and Uncle Dave wanted to see it.”